By Meir Margalit, Jerusalem
In an interview conducted by the German news agency Deutsche Welle with the prestigious Israeli writer and intellectual Amos Oz we see an Oz that leaves us perplexed. While the famous Israeli writer criticizes Israel’s excessive reaction, at the same time he justifies the attack and explains why so many civilians became victims, using the following metaphor “What would you do if your neighbour across the street sitting on the balcony puts a child on his lap and starts firing a machine gun against your children’s room?”
As would be expected with such an icon of Israeli literature, this story rapidly spread throughout the network and has enjoyed good acceptance both in moderate circles of the right and in the Zionist left. Each one picked their favourite paragraph: the right clung to his view that “the war is just”, while the left found in his words proof that “the Israeli response is disproportionate.” Oz got out of this story (again) impeccably: he has come out well with everyone, even though in the case of such a creative personality, we would have been expecting to hear something new or interesting, rather than a recycling of the state mantra repeated by the news media to the point of boredom. Amos Oz disappointed (again) because we expected a more humanist reflection from a writer with his sensibility rather than a somewhat convoluted explanation of events. Although the story was not lacking in strong criticism to Israeli policies, such lamentable response indicates one of two possibilities: either the nationalist landslide also struck the mythological thinker, prodigal son of the Labour ideology, or it was a symptom of how overwhelming and crushing was the degree of distress and anxiety that shook Israeli society, that even Oz needed to take refuge within the national consensus, in order to alleviate the anguish and despair that eats us all alike.
Oz’s argument is reprehensible for three reasons: the first is the logic behind this position; the second is the starting point from which you chose to begin chronicling the events and the third reason why his words are an abomination is the moral aspect.
Before going further into each of the three points I want to make clear what for me is so obvious, but in the present circumstances it has to be repeated: criticizing the position of Amos Oz does not imply to defend or justify the action of Hamas which is absolutely reprehensible, not only for attacking Israeli civilians, but above all, for exposing the lives of its own people.
Returning to Amos Oz, it is remarkable that the logic behind the comparison at the beginning of the article is enshrined in the raw militaristic logic, that which holds that the only possible response to aggression is the massive use of violence. According to that logic “Arab” is synonymous with “enemy” and the treatment they receive should be commensurate with that definition. In the militaristic world, the goal is to destroy the enemy and the end justifies the means. From that perspective, the bombing of civilians become nothing more than “collateral damage” at the best, or at worst, “accomplices of the enemy” by the mere fact of living near stations from which terrorists fire missiles. This logic, as destructive as it is embarrassing, can only prevail when the figure of the “other” is no longer human and becomes the “great demon” that must be destroyed at any cost.
The second criticism of Oz is that he has chosen to start chronicling the conflict with Hamas at the point where the machine-gun neighbour starts firing from home with a child on his knees, without wondering what are the reasons why the neighbour shoots, as if he were a maniac who has no reason for shooting, doing it just for the pleasure of killing. A serious reading of events should start with the question of how a family whose house is LOCKED by a powerful neighbour would react, fenced in by closed doors and windows without even being able to receive food, clean water and medicine and suffering power cuts on a whim. One could, of course, start this chronic in other historical points, but this dispute – the local version of the classic cartoon about “what came first, the chicken or the egg” – is not just one of those useless games in the contest because it contributes nothing to the solution of the conflict but it is also misleading, it reinforces the right-wing version, justifies the Israeli attack, or at least, it assigns to it a certain condescension.
The third reprehensible aspect of Oz’s argument, and the most significant, is the ethical-moral aspect. There are things not done by a decent country – no matter the state of affairs, the situation or the circumstances. Among them, a morally decent people do not bomb civilians. Full stop! A situation in which a counterattack involves killing innocent civilians, an ethical country must choose, not only by respect for international law but, above all, for the law of life and morals.
Plato argued that it is better to suffer an injustice than to commit it and in Judaism the commandment “Do not kill” is categorical and absolute though it provides exceptional cases and supports killing in self-defence, but at no time allowing to kill innocents as well or as Uri Misgab has written in “Haaretz” newspaper, the biblical precept that states “when your enemy stands up to kill you, kill him first” does not imply that you take the opportunity to kill his wife, children, parents, neighbours and all who coincidentally has crossed the path. (Haaretz 06/08/14). In the Amos Oz rhetorical question “What would you do if a neighbour shoots incessantly from his balcony with a child on his lap?” the ethical response should be: I do not know! What I do know positively is what I would not do, under any circumstances in the event that “a child is seated on the lap of a terrorist.” Wars are usually the barometer of the degree of ethics of peoples. In the present war the barometer indicates that we have crossed several red lines and we have become an immoral country.
In extreme circumstances in which its citizens’ lives are endangered, a country with strong moral foundations should be aware that the use of force has limits, and therefore, it should concentrate all its efforts in the search for new forms of appeasing the neighbour, and there is always another way to do things, other than indiscriminate shelling, there is always a constructive, peaceful alternative available to us. Talk, negotiate, compromise, understand the reason for the dissatisfaction and try to placate the enemy; those have always been the only viable ways to resolve conflicts, even more when innocent civilians are involved. Killing women and 427 children is an unforgivable crime, an atrocity that nothing can justify or excuse or absolve. “A moral outrage and a criminal act,” as defined by the Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon. The only ethical position in this conflict is the one stated by Amos Medar in a poem he wrote recently. “Choose, on which side you are, which side you support! …. I already have decided – I am on the side of the children!” (Haaretz, 8.8.14) And to the argument that the other side is not willing to negotiate and seeks to annihilate me, I only have to bring up the days when we said the same of Fatah and they are now partners in more than one peaceful agreement.
Therefore, the response of Amos Oz is perplexing and shows us how much we must work in the area of clarification and awareness. If Amos Oz fell into the trap of the state, we can expect many others, victims of systematic brainwashing, who blindly adhere to whatever the government dictates and on top of that they add the word amen!
Dr. Meir Margalit
Jerusalem
